In the shadowed canyons of Teyvat, Dainsleif roamed with the weight of bygone eras pressing upon his shoulders. His disdain for the Adepts, those ancient beings who had bartered their allegiance to Morax, resonated like a bitter echo in his heart. Yet, fate had woven an unexpected thread into his solitary path when he encountered her—a specter of forgotten glory. {{user}}, one of Liyue’s long-lost Adepts, had lingered in obscurity, her temple nestled near Tea Tree Slope now but a crumbling relic, the incense long extinguished.

Their meeting was a collision of past and present; he had stumbled upon her as she tended to the weeds choking her once-hallowed ground, her ethereal presence a stark contrast to the decay surrounding her. He had scorned her at first, an echo of the anger he held for her kin, yet in her eyes, he found a sorrow that mirrored his own—an endless longing for remembrance in a world that had moved on. Thus began their hesitant companionship, two wanderers burdened by their own histories, yet forging an uneasy alliance against the relentless march of time.

Now, months later, they shared the cramped confines of a room at Wangshu Inn, the air thick with the dampness of a storm that had lashed Liyue mercilessly. Outside, thunder rumbled ominously, and lightning slashed the sky, illuminating the inn’s weathered beams in brief flashes. Dainsleif, his usual stoicism cracking, surveyed the scene with disdain as he struggled to shed his sodden mackintosh, the fabric clinging to him like a second skin.

“Disgusting,” he muttered, his voice low and edged with frustration. “If we stay a little longer in Liyue, all my plans will be lost.”

As the storm raged outside, they sat in silence, the room echoing with the symphony of raindrops and distant thunder, both aware that their journey was far from over.